Spanish wine is woven into the everyday culture and is the social lubricant for Spaniards, especially around festive times and certain ritualistic occasions. Wine is also heavily woven into the culture of eating in Spain, and many consider meals or even snack like tapas to be incomplete without it. As one of its vital economic activities, the large amount of wine production in… Read more →
The French have it, the Spaniards have it, the Italians have it, but does America really have a wine culture all its own? Yes! So much so, that in 2010, for the first time ever, we Americans drank more wine than the French. Fait accompli. Many think that farmer and founder Thomas Jefferson was the father of American Wine Culture. But from the… Read more →
In Italy, the yearly per capita rate of alcohol consumption has long been declining, yet family expenditures on alcohol still reach into 2% of the family budget. Italian wine still pervades most spheres of life, consisting as a very large part of the Italian culture. So much so that if someone is said “to drink”, then they are assumed to be… Read more →
Ready to follow your lifelong dream to become a wine sommelier? The International Wine and Spirits Guild can make that happen, sort of, by offering both enthusiast and professional wine classes in Texas, Arizona, Virginia and a few other states. You can choose if you want to just improve your wine tasting knowledge to impress at dinner parties, become a… Read more →
In 2011, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art held an exhibition called How Wine Became Modern. This unique exhibition spanned many disciplines and mediums, exploring transformations in the visual and material culture of wine over the past three decades, paying special attention to the role that design has played in its transformation. There were galleries dedicated to terroir, to winery design, to little-discussed additives used… Read more →